A nuNumber One would be an excellent idea. Unfortunately I don't have many ideas on who would play her. Mariska Hargitay, maybe?

As for Decker: He'd surely be older than Chekov, wouldn't he? Remember that TMP takes place only a couple of years after the end of TOS.

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Decker was in his thirties in TMP while Chekov was late twenties. NuChekov is 4 years older than TOS Chekov, hence they would be roughly the same age. Ilia might be a bit younger since Decker was stationed on Delta IV as an officer so we might assume that she was not an officer at that time (although she might have been older than the minimum age before joining Starfleet and I think Khambatta was thirty-ish when she played the role so not much younger) but as far as I know her age is not canon. Plus either way, wibbly wobbly timey wimey. It may be than none of the people born after Nero's incursion are biologically the same person.

I agree that it is frustrating that the new franchise is assigning its principle lead and supporting women love interest territory so far (although in Carol's case were making an assumption since they are just toying with our expectations). The comics are including more female characters, including TOS Zahra, and Rand as security support, and Sulu's sister as an engineer without bringing sex into the equation yet. I wish they would give Janice some Yeoman duties to perform occasionally, since that's her job title rather than her rank, and it opens up a slightly wider potential for story use than just being a red shirt with a gun but I'm always pleased to see her show up.

Even if the other characters crop up occasionally in the comic, I'd be quite pleased.

I've done a TMP era comic on youtube and it gets really hard to give all the characters something to do while also including guest characters. In that respect the movie writers are doing a reasonable job (apart from Chekov perhaps who lurches from being an expert in unrelated tasks just to give him something mre to do than have an unusual accent).

I've been watching her in Dollhouse and True Blood and boy was she wasted just sitting there! She is AWESOME.

I think she should be a Captain in a new series.

But otherwise, bring it on, make her a female main and jettison any love interest ideas unless you want to give her a Caitian pet she keeps in her quarters or something interesting.

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She was Aisha Hinds' character? Well, we know that the actress has a lot more to give than what we saw, so it's possible but not inevitable. Lanei Chapman played Ensign Rager in 4 TNG episodes and was awesome in Space Above and Beyond but we never really got to see her do anything significant in Trek. Lt Hawk was fine but Lt Rager could have been better

I absolutely agree that we need more female characters that aren't love interests. Uhura is so obsessed with Spock sometimes she can barely do her job. Carol did get more to do than just be a love interest, but she also had that really awkward and creepy underwear scene.
Even Chapel when she got mentioned, the most important thing about her was that she left the Enterprise because she had sex with Kirk, who didn't even remember her. I find it makes Kirk come off pretty bad if he's having casual sex with his subordinates so much that he doesn't even remember doing it.
I'd love to have more weird, and recognizable aliens. More familiar characters, like Number One, Decker, etc, also sounds good, even if they won't have much to do.

Even Chapel when she got mentioned, the most important thing about her was that she left the Enterprise because she had sex with Kirk, who didn't even remember her. I find it makes Kirk come off pretty bad if he's having casual sex with his subordinates so much that he doesn't even remember doing it.

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I have to admit that I didn't read the scene that way precisely because
a) If Kirk doesn't know the names of his crew generally it makes him appear like a poor captain but if he doesn't even recall the name of a crewman with whom he's had sex then that means he's a REALLY poor captain and
b) How many people can he have sex with while on deep space missions in the short space of time between the two movies (even two at a time)?
c) It implies that she left the ship because Kirk wouldn't love her and we all know Chapel is waaaay more tenacious than that.

I just read it that Chapel was aware of Kirk's reputation and passed on the info. It's vague enough that I can limit the bastardisation of NuKirk's character in my own head.
In my head an opportunity to get closer to tracking down Korby arose and she transferred for that reason and I'm hoping the comic will pick up that ball in one of its rehashes.

I'm assuming that with Spock in a relationship already Chapel turned her interest to Kirk.
Which makes me want to shake her for not going after gorgeous nuMcCoy instead.
It's true, Chapel should be tenacious, but then she never slept with Spock. It's pretty reasonable that after she got the hint that the sex she had with Kirk meant absolutely nothing to him, that she was angry, embaressed, etc and left the ship. Maybe she lost all respect for Kirk and didn't want to serve under him any more. Uh, so to speak.
I do like the idea of her search for Korby being explored.
Do you not think that it was intended that the sexual encounter with Kirk was the motivating reason for Chapel to leave? I thought it was very clear, but maybe an alternate reading is possible. I'm sticking with my inital reaction though.

Do you not think that it was intended that the sexual encounter with Kirk was the motivating reason for Chapel to leave? I thought it was very clear, but maybe an alternate reading is possible. I'm sticking with my inital reaction though.

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It's one interpretation but not the only one. Maybe she just thought NuKirk was too arrogant, immature, and inexperienced and she didn't want to serve under him? Plenty of evidence to support that conclusion right up there on screen!

Chapel was always woefully under-used so I am always going to go for any interpretation that gives her the credit she deserves. :P

Your interpretation does have some shared elements with my alternate/additional thoughts that Chapel didn't respect him because of how he treated her. So I did already see the possibility of some of that.

I absolutely agree that we need more female characters that aren't love interests. Uhura is so obsessed with Spock sometimes she can barely do her job. Carol did get more to do than just be a love interest, but she also had that really awkward and creepy underwear scene.
Even Chapel when she got mentioned, the most important thing about her was that she left the Enterprise because she had sex with Kirk, who didn't even remember her. I find it makes Kirk come off pretty bad if he's having casual sex with his subordinates so much that he doesn't even remember doing it.
I'd love to have more weird, and recognizable aliens. More familiar characters, like Number One, Decker, etc, also sounds good, even if they won't have much to do.

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I won't say Uhura is obsessed with Spock. She is just extra worried that he is secretly planning to kill himself without telling her.

You don't date people you are obsessed with for long because once you start dating them the obsession goes away. How long has spock and uhura been together? 2-3 years?

Nurse chapel was obsessed with Spock in TOS because Spock could not love her back and that grew her obsession with him.

Something I always wanted to know, why was Chapel dropped after THE MOTION PICTURE. She was pretty much one of the regular cast members in TOS and the first feature film, but after that she just disappeared. Was there a reason for this?

Something I always wanted to know, why was Chapel dropped after THE MOTION PICTURE. She was pretty much one of the regular cast members in TOS and the first feature film, but after that she just disappeared. Was there a reason for this?

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I might be mistaken, so somebody will probably correct me, but I recall hearing somewhere that the actress (Majel) was very vocal around that time about her hubby Gene Roddenberry being bumped upstairs to an 'executive consultant' role in TWOK. Apparently the producers were courting her to appear in TWOK at some stage, but she made a big thing about how she would not appear, out of protest for the way they had 'treated' Gene. So she was dropped.

There was certainly no similar protest when the cameo in Star Trek IV came about. While she's barely in it, I did think Majel did a reasonable job of inbuing her scenes in that movie with a touch of the character we all knew (in particular her reactions during and after the trial of the Enterprise crew at the end).

I did miss not seeing Chapel in the later movies more. I never really paid much attention to the behind the scenes drama, but I did figure with her being Roddenberry's wife it was her choice. I really had no idea that Roddenberry lost control of the franchise.
I'm glad she did appear as much as she did at least.

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a) If Kirk doesn't know the names of his crew generally it makes him appear like a poor captain

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Does it?

Space Seed said:

KIRK: I'm not. Oh, I'll need somebody familiar with the late 20th-Century Earth. Here's a chance for that historian to do something for a change. What's her name? McIvers?
SPOCK: Lieutenant McGivers.

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Return To Tomorrow said:

KIRK: Who are you?
MULHALL: Doctor Ann Mulhall, Astro-biology. Well, I was ordered to report here for landing party duty.

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I hadn't forgotten those but bless you for reminding us

However, Kirk was at least aware of McGivers even if he'd had no real interaction with her and he may not have known Mulhall to put a name to a face but he could still have known about her.

He spent time in sick bay with Chapel in the first movie and if he slept with her as well, I think my criticism is sound. If on the other hand she was one of many nurses in sick bay and they had no direct interaction, the fact that he does not remember her name is far less unedifying.

Is it ok for a starship Captain to be sleeping with the crew that serve under him anyways? I'd think that would be a breach of ethic if not outright against the rules.
Of course, Spock is Uhura's superior. That does make me think it's kind of creepy that nuTrek's so full of men in positions of authority sleeping with women subordinates. Every prominant female character that isn't a romantic interest for a man that's her superior officer. All two of them, three if you count Chapel off screen.